d80 to d300 or not

frosty111

hey pplz, i have a d80 and wanna upgrade to d300 hoping to get better image quality, is this the rite path to take?

taking into account i shoot a lot of nature and macro
but like to get into sports too

lense wise i have the nikkor 105mm 2.8 vr and 70 - 300mm vr, tokina 116

or get something else?

Moogle Pepper

Do you feel that the D80 is not producing the shots that you desire? But if you are looking to getting into Sports, then I would say go for the D300.

I would personally invest in faster glass.

ziggy53

Moogle Pepper wrote:

...

I would personally invest in faster glass.

At this point you don't have any lenses that would be very suitable for most sports.

swintonphoto

I agree with the others. The D300 is a wonderful camera, but so is the D80. My brother uses a D80 & a D50 for his photo business and does very well with them. I think he would upgrade if he shot indoor sports more frequently. But, he does mostly weddings and portraits, and the D80 does very well. I always recommend upgrading to better glass unless you already have some good fast glass in the 18-200 range (2.8 max aperture).

Shane422

Consider a D90
Take a look at the D90 as well. That could leave you some cash for a lens as well. If you look at the comparisons on this site, the D90 compares very well with the D300. You give up some weather sealing, and a few frames per second. But otherwise, it's a pretty even comparison. I've had mine for about a month now an am very happy. But I was upgrading from a D50. Its not such a big leap from a D80.

Moogle Pepper

Just get fast and sharp glass! Honestly! you can do a whole ton with the D80 and sharp fast glass, than settling down for a new body.

Tee Why

Repeat after me "glass before bodies, glass before bodies..."

All kidding aside, unless you shoot a lot of sports and want a faster camera or shoot a lot of high ISO shots and find the noise too high on the D80, I probably would not upgrade but would put the money into some nice lenses.

frosty111

many thanks everyone. things were set into motion to fast and i sold the d80...

a little regretful but l need to look ahead....
tell me anything good about the d300 t'make me feel better?

ziggy53

frosty111 wrote:

many thanks everyone. things were set into motion to fast and i sold the d80...

a little regretful but l need to look ahead....
tell me anything good about the d300 t'make me feel better?

The Nikon D300 is still the flagship of the Nikon DX (crop 1.5x) format and it is no slouch. It has a very fast AF section and much better high ISO performance than your D80 had. The overall responsiveness of the camera is also extremely nice.

All of your current lenses will work fine with it, but you will not see a dramatic improvement in image quality except at high ISOs where you will see a reduction in visible noise and more detail.

frosty111

thanks ziggy!
anywho regarding sports photography what lense do u recomment?
i'm planning to sell my 70-300 f5.6 vr
i've got my eye on the nikon af-s 70-200mm f2.8 vr if ed?

TonyL

can you scrap together more $$ and go to the D700?
That is an amazing camera, althought the 300 is no slouch either.

ziggy53

frosty111 wrote:

thanks ziggy!
anywho regarding sports photography what lense do u recomment?

i've got my eye on the nikon af-s 70-200mm f2.8 vr if ed?

That is a modern "classic" sports lens, very fast focus, fast aperture and usable wide open (very good resolution wide open to excellent resolution by f5.6), VR helps with camera shake (but I would turn off the VR for rapid action), it also works fairly well as a portrait lens, especially outdoors with some distance between the subject and the background.

The Nikkor 80-200mm, f/2.8D ED is quite a bit more affordable, provides most of the speed of the above (more body dependant for focus speed), and does not have the VR, but still a very very nice lens for the money.

Mitchell

What sports are you looking to shoot?

Tough to make a generalization of what lenses you need without know what you want to shoot and where you be located during the action.

dejan80501

D300
Don't forget, the D300 has a magnesium alloy body and the D90 does not.

Dejan

MooreDriven

I have a D300 and have really enjoyed it. Now that you've sold your D80, I would not buy a D90. It's a really nice camera as well, but not enough of a jump from the D80. As cadguru suggested, the D700 would be a better option if you can afford it. Because you need to pick up new lenses, you might as well buy those for the future, not just the 1.5 crop factor.

Had the D700 been out at the time, I would have made the investment. I believe the difference between the 300 and 700 are worth the difference. Especially if you don't have a huge investment in 1.5x glass.

Good luck. Either way, you're going to love the new camera.